1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to social network methods and systems for interacting with contacts in a network. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to systems and methods for collecting media status information for contacts identified in a user contact list of an electronic media device.
2. The Relevant Technology
Numerous forms of personal portable media devices are proliferating today. One example is satellite radio, or Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service (SDARS), which is the broadcast of digital audio programming via satellites directly to users. Through satellite radio, subscribers can receive high quality, uninterrupted, digital data such as radio over more than one hundred radio channels. The digital data may include, for example, digital quality music, talk radio, sports, news, weather, and the like. Often, a user of satellite radio has a small portable device they use to receive the digital data stream. Other examples of portable media players are portable digital audio devices, often referred to as MP3 players, portable CD players, portable DVD players, notebook computers, and the like.
Regardless of the type of portable media device, users often desire to know the media content accessed (e.g., viewed and/or listened to) by their friends, family, and acquaintances (also referred to collectively as “contacts”) on the contacts' portable media players. This desire may arise from a user's mere curiosity about the contacts' interests, from a user's desire to discover new content that may be of interest to the user, or for other reasons. For instance, a friend having a taste in music similar to that of the user may be a good source for the user to turn to if the user wishes to discover new music that may be of interest to the user.
Whether the user desires to know the media content accessed by the user's contacts out of curiosity, to discover new music, or for any other reason, current methods of providing such information to the user are cumbersome and time consuming. For instance, unless a user is with a contact while the contact is accessing particular media content, the user would typically have to call, stop by, or otherwise communicate with the contact to determine the particular media content being accessed by the contact. For a user desiring to discover this information many times a day, this method could be both cumbersome to the user and annoying to the contact.